The year 2018 will be remembered as the year of changes for WhatsApp. The messaging platform has radically changed its appearance, proposing numerous new features
Say goodbye to WhatsApp. No, the most famous messaging platform is not destined to disappear forever. However, over the past 12 months, it has undergone so many updates and transformations that if we were teleported from the past to the present we might have some difficulty understanding the rationale behind some of the changes that have been made.
Changes that have not gone unnoticed, both at user and management level. Several high-level personalities have said goodbye to WhatsApp, including its two creators and creators. First Brian Acton and then Jan Koum have left WhatsApp (it seems) in open conflict with Marzk Zuckerberg and in protest at the turn that the messaging platform was taking. In short, the various WhatsApp updates of recent months – and those planned for the next few weeks – would have changed the nature of the app so radically that those who made it born and saw it grow have preferred to pack up and go elsewhere.
How WhatsApp has changed in 2018
If the essentiality and ease of use were two of the workhorses of WhatsApp until a few months ago, the updates of 2018 have radically changed the creature of Acton and Koum. In recent days, for example, stickers have arrived, which will go alongside GIFs and emoji to make our chats increasingly colorful and multimedia. Then there is the vacation mode, designed to make less annoying those group chats with too noisy users. Or the new mode to send longer and longer audio notes without having to keep your finger pressed on the screen. Then there are the changes regarding the operation of groups and, last but not least, advertising in WhatsApp. Of course, from the company swear that it will only affect the Stories and will have a similar operation to what we are used to on Instagram, but nothing prohibits that ads could then be inserted between the chats as well. The list of WhatsApp updates in 2018 could be much longer (unlimited backups with Google Drive, group calls and video calls, photo preview in notifications just to name a few of the most recent ones), but the examples given are more than enough to understand that, from this year onwards, WhatsApp will not be what it used to be.